Chapter One: The Blade That Birthed Me
I was born into nothing—and still, everything was taken from me.
My name is Liam. I was seven when my village was erased from the world.
We were poor, though I didn't understand that then. My mother stitched coats for copper coins. My father guarded the northern wall with a rusting halberd and a badge that gleamed no brighter than our stewpot. But we laughed. We lived.
There was a crooked plum tree behind our home that bore two fruits every summer, and I called them mine.
I had never known war. I had never seen fire as more than warmth.
Until the night Father came home with the sword.
It was not a sword—it was a wound made solid, something carved from the mouth of a black star. It breathed as it moved. It bled shadow where no light fell. And he carried it like a curse shackled to his bones.
I remember running barefoot down the path, the dust warm beneath my feet, arms flung wide. But Father didn't smile.
He was trembling.
His eyes flickered like candle flames caught in a storm. He clutched the sword as though it were trying to escape him.
"Liam," he called. His voice cracked on my name. He dropped to one knee and embraced me with sudden, brutal urgency. His armor was warm. I felt his heartbeat like a war drum beneath the steel. Too fast. Too wrong.
"My boy… no matter what happens tonight—don't die. Live. Carry us. Carry our story."
His hand touched my face. Gentle. Trembling. Tears traced the corners of his beard.
Then he drove the obsidian blade into my chest.
I did not scream. The pain came second to silence. The whole world hushed in one violent breath, as if the sky had forgotten how to make noise. My body collapsed. Steel filled my ribs like ice. The soil met my cheek.
Blood soaked into my shirt. Into the earth. Into the past.
And then came my mother's scream.
She came down upon us like judgment in a dress. Her hands cradled my face before I even fell. "Liam! Liam! Oh gods, oh gods, stay with me, baby—stay!" Her voice shattered on every word. Her fingers clawed at the blood, tried to wipe it away like it was just paint on her boy's chest.
"What have you done!?" she screamed at him. "What have you done to our son!?"
But Father was already broken. He dropped to his knees beside us, the sword falling from his grip with a metallic thud. His eyes were hollow, as if he had seen something no mortal should ever see. The same eyes he'd worn when my sister coughed her last breath in the dead of winter.
I wanted to ask why. I wanted to reach out to her, to him, to someone. But another voice spoke instead.
"Are you my new master?"
It didn't come from my throat. It didn't come from the air. It came from within—deep and ancient, layered with a hunger that predated my bones.
Then the world exploded.
BOOM.
Flames licked the sky like the tongue of a dying god. Ash painted the wind.
Mother lifted me without hesitation. Her arms were iron. Her stride was fury. She ran through the village as fire rained from thatched roofs, as people screamed names I would never hear again. Horses wailed. Trees cracked open like bones.
Behind us, our home split apart with a thunderous howl, black fire swallowing everything. The shockwave hurled us forward. I nearly slipped from her arms, fingers digging into her dress.
"Mother," I croaked, tasting blood. "Let me go. Run."
"No," she said. Her eyes were full. Her jaw was stone. "You're all I have left."
Then came the voice—not in my mind, but from beyond the flame.
"Hah! Where do you think you're going?"
A knight rode into view upon a white stallion, his silver armor gleaming like moonlight on ice. Horns curled from his helm like a beast that wore human skin. Five mages floated behind him, robes writhing with arcane power. One dripped fire from his palms. Another conjured lightning like it was a toy.
Mother didn't beg. She didn't plead.
She ran.
"Bold," the knight muttered.
He raised his sword.
Steel flashed once.
Her head flew from her shoulders like a broken doll. It struck the ground and rolled, lips still moving—still trying to comfort me.
I slipped from her dying arms. Her body folded beside me, a marionette with its strings cut.
I couldn't scream. Smoke had stolen my voice. My soul had already forgotten how to make sound. I hit the ground beside a shattered cart, a bloated goat, and Elinor's charred limbs.
I looked up at the burning sky and felt nothing.
The knight wiped his blade.
"Such a foolish woman."
He turned. "Burn the rest."
The mages obeyed.
SKRREEEEEE—SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
The air screamed. The wind turned to razors. Flames fell in sheets.
Children exploded where they stood. The old were reduced to ash. Beasts howled. I watched the soul of the village dissolve like a dream, reduced to embers and silence.
I burned with them.
"AHHHHH—AHHHHHHHHHHH!" My voice tore free at last. Fire ate my skin. I saw my flesh blister and curl. I smelled myself.
Still, the voice returned.
Are you my master?
"I… I…"
My thoughts were magma. My mind was ash.
But something inside me crawled forward—raw, ancient, desperate.
"Yes," I rasped. "Yes. I am your master."
Even if I am a devil born of the deepest abyss?
"So be it," I whispered. "I'll burn with you. I'll burn them all."
The sword pulsed.
Darkness enveloped me—not death, not sleep, but something worse. Something deeper.
A black cocoon unfolded from the blade like a flower blooming in reverse. Orbs of light drifted upward—souls. Human spirits glowed white, fluttering like dying birds. Animal souls were green, softer, weeping as they swirled. I could hear them—crying, shrieking, praying.
The cocoon absorbed them.
They poured into me.
I felt them all. Their pain. Their fear. Their voices crawling through my veins like threads of smoke. My flesh reformed, and a roar of rebirth clawed its way from my eyes.
"Master," the voice said, now louder, inside my head . "Take my hilt," the voice hissed, ancient and unrelenting.
My hand, as if summoned by fate, reached up and gripped the sword.
Then it appeared before me.
A creature—small, bipedal, scaled black as midnight. Its eyes burned like coals. Its mouth curled with something that was not quite a smile.
It wasn't a demon. It was the sword spirit—slithering in the form of a snake.
The creature crawled toward me. As it did, the blade dissolved into shadow and sank into my palm. A sigil, black and twisting, burned into my right arm—tendrils etching themselves into my flesh like a spider's web spun in ink and blood.
"We are one now," it whispered. "Even in death, I will never let go."
It crawled across my chest, its sharp scales light but its gaze heavy. It stared through my ribs, into the cavity of my soul.
I struggled to stay awake.
"Why do you resist sleep?" it asked, Its gaze never blinked—as if it was searching for a door… and found one in me.
Then it leapt—straight for my eyes. I gasped. And the world went dark.